Oshkosh’s Housing Services Failure - and How We Fix It.
- Logan Jungbacker
- Feb 10
- 4 min read
Updated: Feb 24
A Housing Services System that Prevents People From Falling Out of It:
Every human being is a consumer of housing. Most people experiencing housing instability are not “choosing” to be unhoused. They are navigating a maze of disconnected services while under incredible stress.
A parent facing eviction shouldn’t have to call five places, find an internet connection, fill out duplicate paperwork, and wait weeks while the crisis gets worse. A senior on a fixed income shouldn’t be forced into unsafe housing because there is no where else to go. A person leaving the hospital shouldn’t be discharged into homelessness. These are the realities too many people in Oshkosh face today.
Oshkosh is a community that cares. We have nonprofits doing amazing and heroic work. We have healthcare leaders who want to be part of the solution. We have city officials, staff and local advocates who understand the urgency. But care alone doesn’t fix a broken system. We need a housing services system that is structured, consistent, and accountable — not happenstance, informal, or dependent on whoever happens to be in the room at any given time.
A Better Path: Collaboration That Actually Functions
If elected, I will push for a more unified, accountable approach to housing stability that includes:
City Hall
Winnebago County Partners
Local Nonprofit Leadership
Healthcare Providers
Service Agencies
Landlords and Housing Partners
Community Members with Lived Experience.
What a Collaborative Solution Can Look Like for Oshkosh:
1) Prevention comes first.
We prioritize eviction prevention, rent assistance coordination, and early intervention before families and individuals fall into crisis.
2) One clear entry point for help.
People shouldn’t have to guess where to go. Oshkosh needs a coordinated access model that’s easy to navigate and built around dignity for all.
3) Stronger data-sharing and accountability.
We need better coordination across nonprofits, the city, and healthcare — so the system can track what’s working and where people are falling through the cracks.
4) Better support for housing choice.
The goal isn’t one type of housing. The goal is more choices for housing consumers, including:
Safe rentals
Affordable homeownership paths
Supportive housing as healthcare
Transitional options that don’t trap people in cycles
Housing for seniors and people with disabilities
Housing units sized for families
5) A housing strategy that reflects the reality of lived experience.
We need the voices of people who’ve actually experienced housing instability included in the planning process because lived experience reveals the gaps no spreadsheet ever will.
City Hall, Zoning and Housing Choice: a System That Actually Works
City Hall has a critical role to play in correcting Oshkosh’s housing services failure, not by picking housing winners and losers, but by making it easier for our community to meet the real housing needs of people at every stage of life.
For too long now our housing system has treated affordability as a side issue instead of a core responsibility. The result: a growing gap between the housing that people need and the housing our policies allow to be built in our community.
To fix this, Oshkosh must take a hard, honest look at how City Hall shapes housing outcomes. That starts with a reevaluation of our zoning code. Outdated zoning rules often make it illegal or difficult to build the kind of housing our community actually needs like duplexes, triplexes, courtyard apartments, accessory dwelling units, and other forms of missing middle housing that naturally create affordability without heavy subsidies.
Missing Middle Housing
Fits into existing neighborhoods
Supports seniors who want to age in place
Creates starter housing for young adults
Offers downsizing options without the displacement of existing housing
Provides more attainable rentals and ownership opportunities
Promoting smaller, functional, more efficient housing products expands housing choice and stabilizes neighborhoods. It reflects the housing products people need for how they actually live. City leaders must take the lead by streamlining our current community development and permitting services.
Right now, the process to build or rehabilitate housing can be confusing, slow, and expensive...especially for small developers, nonprofit builders, and local property owners who simply want to invest in Oshkosh.
When the zoning and permitting process is too complex:
Fewer projects move forward
Costs increase and get passed on to renters and homeowners
Innovation gets stifled
Smaller, community-based builders are pushed out of the market
City Hall must make it easier to build housing for:
Families
Seniors
Workers
People with disabilities and challenging health conditions
Individuals transitioning out of unhoused situations
First-time homebuyers
Long-term residents who want to stay in Oshkosh
Everyone Is a Housing Consumer: Especially at the Margins
A growing unhoused population does not happen in isolation. It is the visible outcome of a housing services failure that ultimately fails to recognize one basic truth: everyone is a housing consumer.
When we fail to create enough housing options, there are no real choices for people with limited income, fixed income, or experiencing temporary instability and the entire housing system begins to lock up. Families are unable to move into larger homes when their needs grow, seniors are unable to downsize into housing that fits their stage of life, and people remain stuck in housing that no longer meets their needs simply because there are no viable alternatives.
This stagnation ripples through the housing market, pushing consumers with the fewest resources to the margins first, and eventually, out of the system entirely...
More housing choice means:
Fewer people falling into crisis
Fewer people cycling through emergency systems
Fewer people priced out of our community by default
More stability for those looking in from the edge
City Hall’s job is not just to respond after people become unhoused, rather it is to proactively create a housing service system that prevents people from falling out of it.
By modernizing our zoning policy, promoting missing middle housing, and making community development services more streamlined, accessible and efficient, Oshkosh can create a housing environment where investment is encouraged, affordability is expanded, and people at every stage of life have real options. This is how City Hall becomes part of the solution and how we turn a housing services failure into a housing success story.
(Update note: Fixed grammatical error and added context notes for sources below)
Sources and food for thought:
Housing is Healthcare https://research.umich.edu/housing-equity-and-public-health-in-michigan/
"Housing First" vs "Treatment First" research and data:
5 proven ways to build social connections in your community:
"Community Greening, Fear of Crime, and Mental Health Outcomes"
2024 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report - HUD
"Missing Middle Housing"
Comments